Referring now to FIG. 1, fast food restaurants have long employed permanent outdoor order stands 1 typically having back-lighted displays 2 indicating various items for sale and their prices in combination with a microphone and speaker assembly 3 for taking orders from customers. Periodically, fast food restaurants have found it advantageous to run limited duration promotional campaigns for new products, prize give-aways or other items of marketing interest to their customers. The promotional campaigns often include the display of temporary signs 4 carrying information about the campaign. It is useful to display such temporary signs in prominent locations where customers will have frequent view of them. One such high customer traffic area is the order stand. Typically, the sign is supported atop the stand using a holder 5 formed by a vertical rigid panel 6 attached along an orthogonal base 7. The panel has a number of screw holes 8 for allowing the temporary attachment of the sign thereto.
There are drawbacks to this type of existing sign support device. First, the frequently used large, bulky or odd-shaped signs are not adequately supported for wind and other weather occurrences which may bend the sign at its extremities. Further, the deployment and taking-down of the sign is a time consuming process requiring an adequate level of skill to properly align holes in the sign with holes on the panel. Sometimes, holes must be drilled through the sign on site during deployment and located according to available holes in the panel, leading to potentially unsightly placement of fasteners which interfere with the content of the sign. For example, if the sign content displayed an image of a human model, a fastener might appear on the nose of the model, or on some other, more distracting location. Lastly, fastener hardware such as nuts and bolts often become lost or misplaced between the frequent change-overs of the signs.
Existing temporary signs are typically made from a pair of semi-rigid plastic sheets sandwiching a reinforcing corrugated plastic structure between.